"Let those who try to stop what's right
Burn like my power... Sinestro's Might!"
Burn like my power... Sinestro's Might!"
The tide of universal nothingness is rising. An emptiness spreading like a disease, consuming everything it touches. A religion of anti-emotion grows, tended by shepherds who bolster the flock by force if necessary. The Paling eats away at the very foundation of the universe. But fear is the counter-engine that can turn back the flood.
— Lyssa Drak
Sinestro was a DC Comics series, part of its New 52 line-up. Spinning off from Green Lantern, it follows Thaal Sinestro, once the greatest Green Lantern and later its worst traitor, as he tries to retake control of the Yellow Lantern Corps.
For the title character see Green Lantern - Thaal Sinestro, and for the rest of the Yellow Lantern's character sheet see GL - Sinestro Corps.
This series contains examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating: It's always unclear just how many of those who act like they approve of Sinestro are telling the truth, but most people in the universe know better than to trust him including most of his own Corps and he makes it clear that he doesn't trust any of them either. He does start regaining the loyalty of parts of the corps as the title progresses, but they have very different priorities than most people.My dear, you are my closest advisor and I don't even trust you.
- Alien Abduction:
- Nax was part of the Naidroth Collective, an enclave of traveling scientists who abducted and experimented on sentient lifeforms from various planets.
- The Sinestro Corps abducts and experiments on Saint Walker.
- Assimilation Plot: The Palling, they intend to do this to all life. So too do the New Gods, with High Father trying to harness the Life Equation.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Main selling point for the series, as Sinestro's Corps aren't really good guys by any stretch, but here they tend to go after enemies who are arguably even worse than they are.
- Broken Pedestal: Sinestro abandoning the corps prior to the start of the series sees some of those who were once the most loyal to him attacking him in rage for his betrayal of the group.
- The Cavalry: The Sinestro Corps decide to help the Indigo and Green Lanterns against the New Gods since the general fighting them had recently offended Sinestro and insulted the Yellow Lanterns. Arista is quite shocked when she realizes they've shown up to turn the tide of a loosing battle.
- The Cameo:
- New52 pretty boy "Lobo" is shown reclining with a pair of pretty alien women on one of the many screens Sinestro is looking at at the end of issue 14.
- When Soranik learns of the disappearance of the Green Lanterns the disappearance of John Stewart's group is briefly shown, including Arisia, Kilowog, 2-6-8-1-7-9-5, and Xrill-Vrex.
- C-List Fodder: Sinestro has Des Trvius and Rigen Kale pick out possible dissidents to Sinetro's return and murder them which clears out a lot of the new corps members.
- Emotion Suppression: The Paling's modus operandi, being a member includes suppressing your own emotions and suppressing that of everyone else.
- Endangered Species: Sinestro's first plan of action after returning is finding and rescuing the few remaining Korugar natives (his own race) all of whom hate him with a passion and are only alive because they fled their homeworld to escape from him. Unfortunately for them they're now in danger of being attacked by others for Sinestro's crimes.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Sinestro just can't figure out why people who fled his subjugation react with varying degrees of horror and fury when he catches up to them and transports them to a repurposed prison planet he and his army keep an eye on from the old guard moon. He also mistakes his heroic daughter sticking around to keep an eye on him and his plots as burgeoning loyalty.
- Face–Heel Turn: In the past, he was a hero. Now he's a villain.
- Fallen Hero: Sinestro was once one of the most honored of the Green Lanterns. Now he is one of the Corps' greatest enemies.
- Flying Saucer: The Naidroth Collective ships are round mostly flat shapes. This, in addition to their design status as The Greys and sentient experimentation tendencies makes them very reminiscent of the aliens that accidentally half transformed Byron Stark from Superboy and the Ravers.
- The Greys: Nax and the people of the Naidroth Collective are a light grey skinned alien that comes up to about the adult human waist in height, has no hair and has large solid black eyes and a big head for her thin body. The only real change from the usual grey design are the two small tendrils on the back of her head.
- It's All About Me: Sinestro repeatedly shows himself to be incapable of believing that someone else can succeed where he failed, such as automatically concluding that Kyle Rayner's White Lantern ring came from Volthoom rather than accept that Kyle achieved that state on his own, blaming others for his failures rather than accept that he wasn't good enough on his own.
- Properly Paranoid: Soranik doesn't think her dear old dad has actually turned a new leaf and turned heroic savior, and figures whatever good things he may be doing are in preparation for an endgame that is far less magnanimous. The rest of the Korugar natives are likewise unsurprised that Sinestro hasn't really changed.
- Made a Slave: Six of the Korugar survivors are located at a slave auction where the auctioneer boasts:"This next lot will delight the collectors among you. Survivors from the lost planet of Korugar. Perhaps the very last of their kind. Surely they would make excellent servants, pets, zoological exhibits or rare delicacies."
- Misplaced Retribution: At the slave auction Sinestro says he'll kill everyone if the Korugar survivors are not handed over to him, even though most of the audience is not bidding and just appears to be the downtrodden watching a spectacle and there are slaves in the audience. When the woman who had the highest bid orders her guards to kill the Yellow Lanterns he then kills everyone but her in retaliation. It's especially erroneous because her reason for bidding on them is never revealed, for all he knows she wanted to free them, and anyone with any knowledge about Korugar knows better than to trust Sinestro to keep his word.
- No-Sell: The Paling, the Anti-Emotion priests are immune to the power of the rings which makes them a serious threat, but only against one type of ring at a time.
- Similarly Nax easily dissects them while flying by since they have no defense for her horrifying psychic vivisection ability.
- Planet Looters: The other major feature of The Paling, to showcase how bad they are in relation to Sinestro and his Corps.
- Power of the Void: The Paling represent life with the absence of emotion, their use of the emotional spectrum revolves around the this premise.
- Signature Device: The yellow rings work much the same as the rings used by the Green Lanterns, except that they can also detect and manifest other people's fears.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Paling fill a nitch already occupied by the Black Lantern Corps and the Third Army trying to convert all life to their cause.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: After her Collective ship crashed on an uninhabited inhospitable planet, killing everyone else onboard, Nax thought she was doomed to stay there until she died. When she got the ring and realized she could fly away she was ecstatic, only for the ring to inform her she wasn't free at all:Nax: I never thought...never dreamed...I'd leave that world! But I'm free!
Ring: Negative. Your life is promised to the Sinestro Corps. - You Won't Feel a Thing!: Sinestro asks Soranik to look in on Arkillo as a doctor after Sinestro beat the tar out of him for trying kidnapping her and trying not to allow Sinestro to take back over the corps. Soranik is less than motivated to keep her patient comfortable so the sinister grin accompanying her reassurances is understandable;It's all right. I'm a doctor, but this might pinch a little.
